


The Witch

by CmonCmon



Series: The Witch [1]
Category: Days Gone (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Deschutes County Militia, End of the "I Remember" storyline, F/M, Sex, Slow Burn, Swearing, spoilers?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-03-17 12:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18965242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/pseuds/CmonCmon
Summary: Sarah Whitaker fought to be seen as the Witch of Wizard Mountain. The Witch and a certain Drifter will have to figure out what that means for the two of them moving forward.





	1. Fabric Softener

**Author's Note:**

> This game has given me all the feels, so here we are. I'm absolutely in love with the evolution of Sarah and Deacon's relationship through the game, so I wanted to pick a few moments to explore from her POV.

It had taken Sarah Whittaker months to become the Witch. Sure, the name had only become decided once the Militia had settled her into her tent of Wizard Mountain, but The Bitch worked just as well before then.

She could claim it was a survival mechanism, or self defense… or whatever the fuck she wanted, but the truth was, it was easier to be The Witch. The Witch didn’t feel, didn’t make connections, didn’t ever show vulnerability. Sarah had learned what those things did to a person.

She heard the tent flap without turning around. The Witch was even more important with an audience.

“Does this look like fabric softener to you?” She braced her body on the work top to look as threatening as a five-foot-something blonde could.

“No, ma’am.” 

Of course it didn’t. A normal, sane person would point out that it was obviously laundry detergent just like the whimsical font said it was. Sarah hadn’t been a sane person in a very long time. She glared as he stumbled through the high school basic level ingredients and felt eyes on her back. He was back to his post beside the tent flap before she could form the words to remind Matt she needed real, qualified help. Fuck qualified, she’d take literate.

For a moment, Sarah almost stopped to stare at the man beside Matt. She didn’t bother because she’d done it too many times in the past two years. A similar set of shoulders or the right shape of stubbled jaw and she had frozen with her heart kicking at the her ribs at the spectre of a dead man. The Witch didn’t even look. 

But he’d said it, hadn’t he? St. John? But that couldn’t be true, and she wouldn’t do this again. She knew better. Sure, he looked like him. Impossibly like him, but even if it was - and it wasn’t - that couldn’t happen. Sarah fought to keep her voice steady, but all the venom was sapped.

“Read this.” If he spoke, she’d know it wasn’t him, but it looked like him. So much like him. If it was - as if it could be - keeping him safe from Matt would be a whole different challenge. She glanced over to Matt like this was another idiot grunt in her way. That was what The Witch would do while Sarah Whittaker was silently screaming. 

Then he spoke, and it was his voice. And his hands holding the bottle. His ink showing over the edges of his collar. She snatched the bottle from his hands, and walked away. The other option was a complete and total breakdown. A collapse. Shattering to pieces in the middle of her tent. 

Steps between them, she searched for the lie. Any sign that it wasn’t really her dead husband standing in front of her. The shadows hid his eyes, the mark of her name where it was imbedded in her husband’s skin. What if it was true? 

“Leave us.” She just barely managed to make it sound like a command. 

All the while, he didn’t make a move. He was so clearly unsure, that hesitance in his shape that she knew or thought she did. The same uncertainty she’d watched her husband hide behind wisecracks and swagger. 

And then he said her name, and she couldn’t do it. His voice. His body stepping towards her. Her dead husband. She was cracking open. All the stitches she’d put in over two years were ripping apart. 

“Stand at attention.” It wasn’t an order. It was self-defense. She should be shaking. Crying. Something. Nothing could penetrate the unreality of the moment. The impossibility of it. He was dead. Everyone was dead. She moved closer without meaning to, pulled like a magnet.

He said her name again. His voice, the shape of those letters like they were when she heard him in her dreams, just before she’d wake up and bite back sobs for her loss. 

Her hand touched his cheek. Warm, living flesh. “..no.” Deacon alive meant he’d been alive for two years. She’d been without him for two years, but he had been alive, and that didn’t make sense. That wasn’t possible, but he was standing in front of her. He moved closer and she pulled back. Spooked. Instinctive. It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be real. 

She was speaking because she could just make out her own voice over the hissing of the blood in her ears, but his hands were on her arms, holding her. He was touching her. He was alive.

“It’s okay. I’m right here,” he said, and he was.

She kissed him. How could he be alive and she not kiss him? He was the most unlikely miracle she could have asked for. Alive, whole, and standing in front of her.

“Wait… wait a second…” She tried to make the words form. How could he be alive? She knew how she’d survived, but she’d looked for him. His words ran alongside her own, how he’d survived, how he’d found her. 

He was alive, and all of the brand new problems that caused came crashing down around her. “No--” She pulled back from another kiss. He’d just arrived. He couldn’t survive with the Militia. He’d hate them like he hated all authority.This was her husband who’d nearly gotten shot by a rent-a-cop. 

“We can ride out of here. We’ll pick a direction and we won’t look back--”

“No.” She hated herself and him as the words came out of her mouth. “I can’t.”

She couldn’t. He could. He always could pick up and go. That was him, and she was the idiot who loved him. She tried to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t combine them, find the magic combination to explain to him. 

“We can win this war.”  
“I didn’t come here to fight a war.”

She loved him so much the gaping hole in her chest where she’d once had a heart was now bleeding all over again, but that didn’t mean she could ride off into the sunset and let the world burn. Fuck, she wished it did. 

“Stay here with me. Help me.” There were no words to convince him. There was nothing else to offer him. The hurt in his eyes, the choked sound in his throat, she knew it would never be enough. He could apparently survive more than two years in a freaker-filled wasteland, but the titles, arbitrary rules, saluting to power… those things would kill him on the inside if not on the outside as well. 

And then they had an audience again. “Colonel's looking for you.”

Sarah would have told the soldier to fuck off, but all the air in her lungs had evaporated when Deacon didn’t answer. She had only just gotten him back and he would leave again. She implored him silently, wishing for any sign this wasn’t the last she’d see of him. 

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” His eyes wouldn’t meet hers. He couldn’t look at her. This wasn’t how she wanted it at all. 

“Wait -- wait a second.” She couldn’t let him walk out without something else. Something more. Some promise she’d ever see him again. “Your requisition form.” She held out the clip board and didn’t let go once he reached out to take it. He looked at her, listened to her. Maybe he even really heard her.

“Thank you - soldier.” She would always have to be The Witch when they had an audience. Even when she could see the misery on his face. It had been the only way she could survive without him. Now, it was the only way she could keep both of them alive.


	2. Secure Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere after the "Afraid of a Little Competition" cutscene, Sarah radios Deacon on the secure channel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry - I can't quite find when that radio dialogue triggers in the game, so I'm guessing. Also, I guess the rating will probably rise because here we are with things getting a little smutty.

Sure, it was a stupid thing to do, but she was doing it anyway. 

“Deacon, it’s Sarah.” She’d radioed him plenty of times before this. Called in updates and locations, checked on his progress, all the normal things The Witch would do to get her work done.

“Sa-- Lieutenant Whitaker, ma’am.” His voice snapped back over the headset and Sarah cringed. Sarah had heard a lot to men spit the word ‘ma’am’ at her. He used it like a weapon. 

“It’s a secure channel.” Like that explained everything. They’d already had their first argument after not seeing one another for years. Maybe she should have left it alone.

Not that it mattered, but it was still a luxury to say his name out loud. To hear his voice.

“You… uh-- you got something for me?” he asked to fill the silence. “‘Cause I’m really busy and…”

Deek was a lot of things, but a good liar was not one of them. “Where are you?” Her words came out too softly.

“In the shit. Like always. Weaver wants… whatever the fuck and -- you know what, nevermind,” he grumbled along. “It’s late. You need something?”

“Are you… safe?” It was a stupid question. The world was a deathtrap. ‘Safe’ didn’t exist anymore.

“Yeah?” His tone was cautious. It was the same way he used to sound when he was trying to remember if he’d promised her something he’d forgotten about. “Just… yeah, stopped in a good spot along the run. Too many Swarmers out in the cold.” He must have shifted because the mic picked him up more closely now. She could hear his breath on the radio. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, Doctor?”

“I…” Her words dried up and she chewed her lower lip. The man she loved was back from the dead, and she couldn’t even complete a sentence without leaving both of them with hurt feelings. “I can’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep. I needed to hear your voice.”

“Shit.” He exhaled and she wanted to pretend she could feel the air fan against her skin. “I’m here, Sarah. I’m here.”

She nodded even if she knew he couldn’t see it. 

“You still in the lab?” He was reaching for conversation, and she couldn’t be more grateful.

“Yeah, I have a cot it the back. I tried to sleep but I have too much to do... I… I don’t leave much.” It felt like a confession. She couldn’t make her research work, couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and she’d spent nearly all of her time miserably alone until he’d arrived, and now she spent that time miserably longing. “I’ll let you get back to… whatever. Goodnight Deek.”

“Sarah, wait.” His voice hitched. Maybe she wasn’t the only one this awkwardness was tearing to shreds. “Want to tell me about it?”

He sounded so unsure, so tentative she wanted to cry. “No, it’s boring and crazy, because every time I get the first sign or progress on a sample, the next one is just a total--” she made a low sound of disgust. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”

“You’re saying you didn’t call me to send me out for exotic strain of algae or some rare pine sap?” 

“No, what would I do with-- oh.” She blushed in the dim light of her tent. “Very funny, Deek. No.”

“So you called me in the middle of the night, laying in your bunk, just to say hi, huh?” His voice was warm and teasing and she melted inside. How long had it been since she’d heard that tone? “What does the Witch of Wizard Mountain wear in her bunk?”

“Oh my god, Deek.” She laughed for what felt like the first time in forever. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely, Lieutenant Whitaker.” He was enjoying this way too much. They’d never done anything like this -- like… what? Phone sex? -- before they were married. He’d never had the time for more than a quick call when he was on a run with the guys and they’d never spent much time apart. Maybe if she’d known him when he was in Afghanistan, but that was before.

“Just another standard issue tank top.” Her whole face felt hot.

“What else?” 

She could hear the roughness in his voice, but maybe that was just the channel. “Deek, it’s not like I could strip down in here. There are always people walking in and…” He hmmed on the other end of the line. “I unsnapped my bra and the button on my pants.” Could she be less sexy? She could have lied.

“That right?” His voice was definitely rougher now. “Could I fit in the cot with you? Curled up next to you?”

Maybe she wasn’t the only one who needed this. “You’d have to be very close.” Fuck, her own tone had gone husky. “It’d be tough to find a spot.”

“Oh, I think I could find a spot.” He wasn’t talking about sleeping arrangements. “I know just where I’d fit my hands…”

Sarah’s hand that wasn’t pressing the headset closer to her ear idly played with the button on her waistband. She knew where his hands would be, one up her shirt, the other down her pants. “Fuck, Deek…” 

“We might need a bigger bed for that.” He was grinning, she could hear it. “But that worktop of yours was plenty of space. Your legs around my waist--”

“Deek.” She didn’t have anything to say, she just needed to say his name.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said it like a sigh.

“Where are your hands, Corporal?” She didn’t have the guts to tease him, and in this moment, she didn’t have the wits either. Sarah wanted to imagine him safe and rested and thinking of her.

“Where do you think?” He managed a laugh but was short and rough. “Keep going. Please?”

She could never resist him. She hardly ever wanted to. “I have a hand under my shirt.” Sarah was self-conscious, but she wasn’t as awkward anymore. “It’s nice. I… uh…”

“Are you pretending it’s my hand?”

“Yes,” she whispered and he groaned on the other end of the line. It was the truth, even if she’d learned over the past two years her hands made a poor substitute for his.

“Lieutenant Whitaker?”

“Who the fuck--?” Deacon was already snarling.

“What it is?” she barked, scrambling to put her clothes back in order. 

“Excuse me, ma’am. The Colonel asked to see you.”

“Fuck.” Deacon sounded as disappointed as she felt. 

“Tell him I’ll be right there.” She glared until he disappeared out the tent flap. “Deek, I’m sorr--”

“Don’t.” 

“Yeah.” She couldn’t apologize. She didn’t even know what she’d apologize for. “I-- I miss you. Stay safe out there.”

The silence was so long she worried he’d clicked off. “‘Night, ma’am.”


	3. Centrifuge pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I seem to still be doing this. The mission at CCC is so long it'll be two parts. 
> 
> It's also got the two moments that really made me want to get into Sarah's head. As is probably obvious, I'm a little obsessed with the small movements in the cutscenes -the averted gazes and that sort of thing. So, here we are.

“I’m not going to give this one to you.” Sarah looked down at the requisition sheet in her hands. She and Deek were still sniping at one another. He’d been correct when he called the whole thing strange, but it wasn’t the strangeness of it that kept her up at night. 

“Why not?” Her husband was one of the toughest men she’d ever met, before or after the world went to shit, but the way his face fell as he finally look at her was so vulnerable. Like he worried she would give someone else the pleasure of going on her supply runs. Like there was any way on Earth she didn’t think he was good enough.

“I’m going with you.” It made sense from a totally practical standpoint - she knew the location but not well enough to describe where to find what she needed from memory. Her words were not about being practical. She had spent so much time digging through the hurt feelings between them, but she’d finally been able to name them, and that made the hurt different. It was still there now, but it was both sharper and clearer. 

Resentment. 

Even if she couldn’t say the words out loud, Sarah resented the man she loved more than anything for saving her life, for living without her for years, and then showing up to throw what little life she’d managed to build into doubt and disarray. It was so fucked up, but Sarah was a scientist. She researched until she understood a problem and then worked with that information to solve things. 

It didn’t take a genius to see he resented her, or at least the life he’d found her in. Protected in a camp, under the authority of strangers, forced to sleep apart, unwilling to leave. But she wasn’t choosing anyone over him. She just needed his patience. That way, she could choose both saving the world and having him.

“When’s the last time you went on a run?” Maybe he was relaxing by millimeters. But probably not. 

“I’ve done supply runs, just like everyone else.” Thanks to you, she didn’t say. Thanks to the man who had taught her how to ride, how to shoot a gun. “It’s been a while.” 

Still, the allure of being outside these walls with him, to be with him without the interruptions and prying eyes. The opportunity to just be themselves without the distance their ranks imposed was enough to make this the best idea she’d ever had. Unless she really could cure the freakers. Then this would be the second best.

The only idea she had that he liked was riding double on his bike, but everything from her small talk about the Ark to her gun were points of tension. She’d never asked if anything had happened with anyone else while he’d believed her dead. Neither had he. She’d been afraid of the answer. Maybe he was too.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, already astride his bike. He knew the answer to that. He was daring her to say it. 

She cleared her throat. “Nothing. It’s just --” she hadn’t been that close to him since he’d found her. She hadn’t held him, leaned against his back and smelled the warmth of his skin. Riding together would be like old times in a wonderful way that she was almost scared to revisit. His eyes were soft, with that almost pleading look that hinted he was still afraid of her rejection. “Never mind.”

She’d killed freakers. She’d killed men. She wouldn’t be scared of falling for with her husband again.

“Hold on tight. I remember.” Sarah rested her hands on him as gingerly as she had the first time she was on his bike with him.

They spoke as they rode, and she couldn’t decide if the pleasure of the familiarity of their bodies on the back of a bike outweighed the looming dread of the questions not being asked. She could have said more when he asked about her ring. His ring. The Mongrels ring. She’d told the truth, but not the whole truth. Maybe he didn’t need the whole truth.

Sarah hadn’t spent a lot of time it spaces she’d known Before, the capital B kind of before. Her only trip to Crater Lake had been the one time she and Deek had gone, and the rest of her time since everything had gone to shit had been spent shuffling through refugee camps.

The CCC campus was hardly deeply familiar, but that didn’t make seeing it like it was less disturbing. She’d stood in these same places with lounging college kids rushing off to class or the cafeteria, lying around in the sun and laughing. Now it was worse than a graveyard, full of the unburied dead and the undead.

With a task to focus on, the tensions between them were easier to bear. She could tell him not to shoot the newts and he didn’t take it grudgingly as an order from a CO. He could quick-think and fast-talk both of them into ridiculous plan to face down a small army of freakers as long as everything went to his crayon-drawn plan.

“We can do this.” He said it with such easy confidence, thinking as he paced. Like ‘covering fire’ and ‘taking out the rest’ were as natural to her as cellular structure and enzyme reactions. Really, she’d follow any plan that had the two of them as ‘we’. “I do this all the time.”

Of course he did. He hesitated for one second with his back to the door. She’d wanted to drag him close for a kiss. For luck. But the last thing they needed was for things to get more complicated.


	4. Centrifuge Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Real life is busy. I should probably be paying attention to real life.
> 
> Also, I'm so convinced Sarah likes it when Deek calls her 'ma'am' is a not-snappish way.

“Uh, Sarah?” His voice crackled in over the radio. Apparently, she could manage covering fire but finding something tall enough and stable enough to get him through a window required micromanaging. 

When the swearing started, she knew it wasn’t in frustration. It was stupid to split up. They knew the place was crawling. All she could find were cardboard boxes that wouldn’t hold any weight, desks that were too big and too heavy to throw out there, and rickety old chairs that might not survive the drop to ground level. As long as she could hear gunfire, he was safe.

No, not safe. Alive.

Finally, she found it, another one of those crates that had once had some kind of survival supplies, rations or bandages or bullets, and dragged in back to the broken window.

“Deacon, here!” she called out, straining to hear if there was any more gunfire. Heaving it out the window took leveraging her body weight, but that meant it was more likely to support his. In the next moment, she was dragging him through the window, toppling when he overbalanced her. They hit the dusty old carpet panting, but still breathing. And then, somehow, laughing.

“Why are we laughing?” They should be shaking with terror. Sarah didn’t know if it was a bad sign or a good one that they seemed to be at their best cheating death.

“You were always trying to talk me into going back to school.” Of course he could even joke at a time like this. “You finally got your way.” Deacon rolled on to all fours, pausing to collect himself, smiling at her.

“Better late than never.” She wanted him to lean over and kiss her. She wanted this moment, still buzzing with laughter and racing hearts, and alive with the memory of when things were different to become more.

Instead, he held out a hand to help her to her feet.

“Thanks.” She pulled the gun down off her shoulder, holding it like Derrick had taught her to. “You ready?”

He made a low sound of agreement, but maybe she saw just a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

“Let me go first this time.” She knew the way - maybe - and he needed a minute to recover from whatever the fuck had happened while she was finding him a step up.

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.” There were no barbs on the words. That he meant them genuinely, maybe even warmly, sent a thrill through her. There was time to think that through later.

The inside of the college looked even worse than the outside. Blood and god-only-knew-what was streaked on the walls, reminders and remnants of the one-were survivors were scattered around. She needed to focus. They would get what they came for and return to the safety of the camp. A tiny part of her wished she didn’t have to. She and Deek versus the World made for an amazing daydream.

“Door’s jammed.” She tried it again, just in case.

“Here, let me--”

“I got it.” Sarah needed him to see she was an equal partner in all this. Even if Deek was getting through the resentment, she needed to be a valuable part of the team. It took two tries, but the door gave satisfyingly, flying open with a pop.

“See? I told you--” She smiled at him, ready to see the look on his face. Her instincts and reflexes clocked the Freaker before her thoughts. Sarah spun and put a bullet in it before she’d had a chance to really see it. “Like I said -- I got this.”

The look on his face was something numb and almost comically scared. He’d killed more of them than anyone according to the bounties he brought in.  She hadn’t been careless, and she’d dropped it with just one shot. If she wasn’t still a little breathless, Sarah would have been proud of herself.

They had equipment to find. She couldn’t spend the emotional energy guessing what her husband thought of her survival skills.

They made it across the quad, into the next building and on. He seemed to spot everything, have a plan for everything they came across. Sarah knew well enough to snatch up some extra ammo when she found it, but his collecting this and that was so like the endless pile of parts he’d kept in his otherwise tidy shop. Of course he’d still be looking for things to salvage.

“Try not to attract any more Swarmers this time, alright?” She teased as she dragged another one of those crates toward the broken window.

 “I’ll see what I can do,” he snarked back, and she grinned. Her face fell when she heard the groaning and Sarah wanted to shout his name. She’d been stupid to joke like that.

Then she looked up from the crate. The groaning wasn’t on his side of the radio. 

Sarah fired at them. Just like she’d been taught. Just like she’d practiced. Short, controlled bursts. Make the shots count. There were so many of them.

Holy shit. So many of them.

She fired until the rest of them were too close, and then dodged the grasping, outstretched hands. Deacon was shouting her name. _Don’t let him have to listen to me die._

“You sonofabitch! Get off me--” She kicked the nearest one where the swarm had knocked it to the ground. Move and shoot. Move and shoot. There were so many of them. How many bullets did she have?

She needed to be careful. Shorter bursts, better shots. Sarah knew she was cornered, but she needed to live. She needed to shoot them all and then she’d live. She needed to keep shooting. Just keep shooting and she’d live.

“Hey.” Deek caught the barrel of her gun. It was empty. She wasn’t dead, but they were. All of them. She’d killed them all. Her eyes focused on him for a moment to reassure herself before she could finally let the gun down.

“There were so many of them. They just kept coming.” Her voice was thin. Reedy. She wasn’t even sure the words were coming out.

“It’s okay.” His hand rested on her arm. She didn’t know how many times he’d repeated it, but she wasn’t sure she believed it yet. “You’re okay.”

Slowly, she came through the fog. She’d done it. She’d killed them all. Survived. It was their blood splattered on the walls and her clothes.

She’d done it, and he didn’t need to protect her. They both had enough to worry about without starting with that shit.

“I’m fine.” She almost sounded it. “C’mon. We’re almost there.”

Being outside was better. Her gun was loaded and the pounding adrenaline had her on high alert. She was fine.

“You sure you’re okay?” he said it so cautiously.

She had to tamp down the urge to snap at him. It wasn’t him. It was the everything of it all. The fear, the panic, the primal rush of survival. “I’ve killed Freakers before.”

“I know. It’s just--”

“I’m fine.” She didn’t want to talk about it. He ought to understand that.

Getting into the science building was a distraction she welcomed. How to get in, how to get to the roof, those were just problems that needed solving. Sarah liked solving problems. Especially with Deek. They made a great team in a way she might have never expected before. He’d always been clever, but he was inventive and skilled and he listened to her input. Fuck, she was falling for her husband all over again.

And then there was a group suicide. And the Marauders and the Freakers. Sarah couldn’t put her finger on the moment she stopped being afraid, but it happened. She was in the thick of things, working side by side with the man she loved and feeling like they could take on the whole world together. She had spent two years remembering tiny details of what her life had been like with Deacon in it, but she’d forgotten just how strong he made her feel.

“Are you alright?” She paused as they went back to get the centrifuge. He looked pale. Maybe dazed. Had he been hit hard when she wasn’t watching? They’d have to get back to camp before Arturo could look at him.

“Am I alright?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Maybe she was the only one who felt like they made a great team.

“Oh, I don’t know. I remember the day I met you, you fired my gun in the air to scare off those rednecks and you were so scared you couldn’t stop shaking.” He stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

Was that what he wanted? The old Sarah back? She’d been dead for years. Too bad the Witch wasn’t what he wanted. “Yeah, well, a lot’s changed since then.” ,

They could go back to camp. He could… Whatever. Ride off into the sunset. Clearly she was the only one who thought they were as good as they ever were. Maybe even better.

“What...happened to you, Sarah?” His words were halting, like he didn’t really want the answer.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She knew that in an unspoken way, he was probably right. He didn’t want the answer. “Nothing’s happened to me that hasn’t happened to every other fucking person on this planet.”

So much for a nice day out.


	5. Supplies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A full-on caveat -- I didn’t even remember the moment this whole thing is based on happened until I went back to watch cutscenes on YouTube. (I can legit call that ‘research’ right?) 
> 
> The only information to go on is from Deacon’s talk with Taylor, and that was limited to one mention from Taylor; “Oh hey, I saw the Lieutenant earlier. She was trying to get something from the doc…. I thought you’d want to know.”
> 
> Practically speaking, this might just be a way to show Taylor’s loyalty to Deek, but writer-brain and all that.

It had been days, and Sarah was still stewing over her day out in the shit with her husband. Maybe if anything had gone right with her work, it would have taken her mind off of it, but instead, it only made things worse. Nothing in her life was working. She was failing at everything.

It wasn’t even all anger. That would have been easier. Instead, the anger at him refusing to accept her as she was tumbled around her own disappointment and frustration. She had walked through that day again and again when she lie in her bunk sleepless. She wore out the tiny gems of the moments she wanted to hold on to - laughing on the floor, him setting her on her feet in the atrium oh so carefully, the way he’d said ‘ma’am’ that one time.

The rest took more work. The suicide pact was just another way out to her, but maybe he hadn’t seen that before. She’d been callous not to ask. They’d been apart two years. How could he know she’d been in those rooms, discussed those plans before? Maybe there were still fresh terrors out there for the fearsome Deacon St. John.

He might be unable to accept how much she’d changed, but her? The man who handed of packages in her tent might have a lot in common with her husband, but he’d changed too.

And Sarah wasn’t ready to give up on him. She just needed a new plan.

She walked past the new kid who had lost his ear. Another one Deek had saved. Sarah couldn’t even glance at him. She was too worried her face would give her away.

“Lieutenant Whitaker, are you well?” Doc Jimenez looked surprised to see her. “Come, sit.” He waved her to a cot.

“I am. Thanks. I need your help with something.” She couldn’t help but steal a glance around the room, and she saw Arturo’s attention sharpen. 

“I’ll do what I can, as you know.” His brows were lowered, concerned and maybe suspicious. Sarah knew about him and Matt, and she knew Arturo felt stifled. She didn’t blame him. “I was out in the shit on a run the other day.”

“Ah, I heard you rode out with Corporal St. John.” His attention sharpened. “Is everything well?” he reasked the question with a different meaning this time.

“Perfectly well. But the run didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.” Sarah gave him one pointed look. “But I was hoping you might have some supplies in case there is another run?” She raised a pale brow. 

She watched as the doctor’s face shifted from concern to understanding. “Sarah. Yes, I understand.” He rubbed a hand along the side of his neck. Just where her name was on her husband’s. “Of course. I understand you now. I can see what I can do, but those sorts of supplies… are harder and harder to get.”

Sarah remembered the first real fight after she and Deek had gotten married. They always bickered, but it was usually nothing more than a quick moment of one of them being stupid, and the two of them getting back to normal just as quickly. The first time they’d really fought, they had danced around each other for days. Sarah had thought Deek was the one still brooding over it, but when she’d finally had enough and dragged him close for a kiss, she’d seen the relief on his face. For all he was that tough guy outlaw biker, she spent a lot of time reassuring him. 

“It’s not much,” Arturo said, coming back with his hand closed. “But it’s better than nothing.”

Sarah opened hers and took the foil packets. “Thank you.” She meant it. The end of the world was very much not the time to get careless. “If you need any more of those supplies I can help you with, let me know. I’ll put in an order for the herbs next time there’s a run.” Just because fraternizing was against the rules didn’t mean there weren’t people seeing the doctor for certain things Matt didn’t need to know about. All the rules and ranks in the world wouldn’t change that.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Lieutenant Whitaker.” Arturo nodded before looking poised to say something. One hand mid-gesture, he leaned in closer. “Matt allowed you outside the walls with Corporal St. John? No--” the hand fluttered dismissively “Objections?”

“Not yet, but I’m not his treasured Doctor.” Sarah wished she could tell Matt how holding on too tightly could be as bad as letting go. “But I think Deek-- Corporal St. John wouldn’t mind if you asked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I wrote a whole different scene before I realized there was probably story-wise no way for Sarah and Joany to ever meet the way the timeline is laid out. *chucks all those words in the trash*


	6. DNA Synthesizer Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of what feels like a lot of them of Sarah and Deek and the trip to Cloverdale. It's such a big chunk of story I'm trying to split it logically, so sorry for the delay!

Sarah genuinely believed she could win the war. Deep down, in her heart of hearts she believed it. Even if the world had gone to shit, even if she’d thought her husband dead for years. Sarah believed in science. It was the kind of belief fanatics had in religion. She still believed science could cure the infection.She just hated knowing she wasn’t scientist enough to do it.

The centrifuge truly had been a breakthrough, but now that she was on the other side of that breakthrough, it was obvious it wasn’t enough.  

“Well, that’s it.” Telling Deek hurt more than she’d expected. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a stake in her work, no matter how grudging. “That’s as far as I can go.” He’d always joked about how smart she was, about her phDs, but he’d joked about it like it impressed him, maybe intimidated him. Turns out, she wasn’t smart enough. 

“How can I help?” 

“You can’t, unless you have a DNA synthesizer somewhere.” It wasn’t like the centrifuge. People had centrifuges. This was advanced technology.

“No, but there’s an auto parts store near Fort Klamath I could check out.” He leaned himself next to her, and Sarah wished she could say his proximity was soothing, but in this moment, it only made her failures more weighty. 

“Deek, you can’t get what I need there, you--” She didn’t need auto parts. This wasn’t the kind of thing she could throw together. Then Sarah saw the hopefully little smile on his face, like his joke would make her laugh. It did, but at herself and how dumb she was. “God, you think I would learn.” 

“Actually, I think I know where you can get one.” 

Sure, he sounded serious, but she wasn’t ready for another punchline. When it didn’t come, she looked over. “Really?” 

“Yeah, your old lab. Cloverdale.” 

He had that look. Clever. Shrewd. Like he was planning. Plotting. Sarah didn’t want to get her hopes up, but that one look and they were rising. 

“Yeah, that’s great. All we have to do is find a way over the mountains.” The mountains that stood between their camp and all the places he’d called home.

“Yeah, you’re right. That’d be impossible.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes, but Sarah knew he’d found a way. That was how he’d gotten to her.

“You know a way over…” She felt real, genuine hope now. Face to face, she felt that look of his, the knowing one that would find a way, on her own face. “Good. You can take me.” 

“Is that an order, Lieutenant?” His tone had gone dry again. Sarah could only hope he was teasing. 

“Yes.” She tried to make it sound teasing. She needed to go, and he needed to take her. If she had to order him, she would. Instead, he moved with that slow sort of disappointment that killed her. “No, I’m just--  I mean no. It’s not an order.” What kind of unfair trick question was that? 

“Well, which is it?” He was annoyed, maybe as frustrated as she was, shifting his body like he was ready for a fight. 

“I don’t know. Are you going to take me or not?” Sarah wasn’t playing games with him. It was whichever one it had to be to make him take her along. She was only trying to save the damn world. 

“Dress warm. Pack light.” He was moving. Trying to get away from her. Why was it so hard to close the distance between them? She had to try. 

“Hey Deek?” 

“Oh my god, if you say ‘thank you’ one more time, I--” 

She knew how he felt about thank you. That it was a reminder of the distance between them. The last thing she wanted was distance between them. Sarah knew she had to move quickly. Decisively. She caught his arm and pulled herself close enough to kiss him. Not the kind of kisses she dreamed about from him, slow and bone-melting. Just a kiss. A reminder she might be The Witch, but she was still the woman he had once loved and maybe still did. 

When he pulled back, she tried to read his expression. For a moment, she nearly drowned in doubt that he’d misunderstood her gratitude for something more cynical. His hands softened on her arms and he nodded, maybe a hint of a smile showing. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.” 

_Now._ She didn’t say it out loud, but she thought it. Instead, she let him walk out and did as he asked, packing light and layering the warmest of what she had. 

They were loading up his bike in the pre-dawn grey. It was easier to be around him when the world was sleepy. Sarah didn’t need to spend quite as much emotional energy balancing the person she was with Deek and the person the rest of the camp knew her as. 

“Going somewhere, Lieutenant?” Colonel Garret called out, and Sarah tried not to grimace. She took a small step ahead of Deek, to put her body between them. 

“Colonel. Captain.” She saluted. She spoke as concisely as she could. The fewer words, the less of a chance for a misstep. Not being able to read Deek’s face as the two officers spoke to her felt like juggling a time bomb. 

Kouri thought it was the right moment to speak up for Weaver, or if she was being charitable, to inform her of something she might not know. 

“You realize you are more valuable than any piece of equipment.” The Colonel moved closer to her as he spoke and Sarah could practically hear Deek bristle. “Equipment can be replaced. You cannot.” 

“I’ve been in the shit before, Matt. You know that I can handle myself.”  She knew Deek hated that she used his first name, but maybe he missed the two implicit statements. Sarah could call him Matt, so she wasn’t like the others. Matt knew her, so he had to trust her judgement. Just like the Witch had kept her safe, the valuable scientist who made tea for Matt kept her protected in another way. 

“Carry on, Lieutenant.” 

She saluted him in return. Deek was silent, but he started the bike. This time, Sarah didn’t hesitate before climbing on and putting her arms around him.


	7. DNA Synthesizer Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From leaving camp to the Thielsen tunnel. There's a ton of game dialogue that was too good to miss, so I just left it all in.

Every yard between the bike and the colonel brought a new breath of freedom for Sarah. If the way the muscles of his chest and back were relaxing, Deek felt the same.

They had barely reached the external gate before Deek started to bitch about the Militia. She let him run with it because one way or another, she was the reason he was still there. In some ways, how he’d managed to complete his entire military service was beyond her. 

“That was different. There were more people in the world, I don’t know. I mean… having a military made more sense.”  
The complaining was just something to talk about. When he had a point to make, Deek didn’t grumble like this. 

“You know what’s funny about uniforms and ranks seeming pointless? I used to think the same thing about the MC…” She went on even if she knew he didn’t want to hear it. “When you all used to ride together, you looked like an army.”

“Now that you mention it, I - I can see your point.” 

Of course he could, but he’d been on the other side of those closed ranks. Those had been the people who he admired who gave him a structure to succeed in. The people who had made a family around him and were so well rewarded for it. Sarah had been the one on the outside then, the MC acting like she was the one pulling him away from them. As if she’d asked him to go nomad. Maybe they didn’t know him as well as they thought they did. He could only make those sorts of decisions for himself. 

“You know, I’m actually surprised you weren’t wearing the cut when you came into the camp.” She had wanted to ask about it in a serious way, but the moment had never come. It was just easier to throw it out there. Of course he joked back. Everything about their lives from the past two years was a minefield. Sarah never knew when it was safe to take one more step forward or it she’d unknowingly blow up their fragile relationship.

Fragile. That was something her relationship with Deek had never been before. But then, they hadn’t believed each other dead before.

A militia checkpoint appeared and Sarah tried to tamp down her frustration.The militia was always looking over her shoulder.

“Hey! Shut it off,” some guy with a semi-automatic shouted, and Sarah supposed she ought to be thankful Deacon complied.

“You’re gonna have to turn around buddy. We’ve got orders to keep anyone from--”

“To keep anyone from what, Corporal?” She leaned around Deek to demand. Sarah wished she could see Deek’s face as she pulled rank, and she was thankful she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t see it was you.” As he started to explain the Colonel’s orders, Deek began to slouch in front of her. To make it easier to pretend he was just some grunt stuck with the shit job of toting the Witch around? She had things to do. She couldn’t spend her time dissecting Deek’s every twinge. Then again, she’d always been good at multi-tasking.

“Are you accusing me of going AWOL?” Sarah asked.  
“No, ma’am.”  
“Then get out of my way.” 

Deek made half a turn back towards her before revving the engine, but the guy still didn’t move until she yelled at him again. 

“I’ll have to report this.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Sarah snapped at him. She’d had one conversation like a normal human before she had to go back to bitching out men she outranked. Even worse, she had to do it inches apart from Deek, who she also outranked. Fuck. 

They started up toward the pass in silence, but Sarah was waiting for Deek to say something. To make a joke to pretend that hadn’t just happened, to tell her what a bitch she’d been or how much he would hate her if he was that guy.

All he went with was, “That sounds serious.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, he said he’s going to report you. How’s Matt going to take that?”

Oh, here they went again. There was no part of that answer he was going to like. “The Colonel will tell him to mind his own fucking business and never to question an officer.”

Sarah would have been fine to ride in silence until things were less… whatever the fuck they were, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Oh my god.”

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, I mean, it’s just -- the view up here. It’s incredible.” Sarah was drinking in the rocky peaks and broody, dawn sky. It was so majestic, so much grander than all the day to day shit. 

“I guess I just don’t see it anymore.” If he had said it dismissively, Sarah would have called him a liar, but Deek almost sounded sorry that it was true. “Oh, I appreciate it, you know? Bein’ around when the morning comes up is a helluva lot better than the alternative.”

“I gotta be honest --” Maybe if she was facing him, she wouldn’t have had the guts to say it. “There were times I didn’t believe that, you know, about hoping to see another day.” 

“Yeah, I know the feeling.” His tone was low, almost lost in the rush of the wind. It must have been the terrain, but Sarah’s arms tightened just a little around him. She was glad she’d held on, and she was grateful he did too.

“What kept you going?” She’d had people who needed her, and dull as it sounded, science. Solving a world-altering crisis was a good reason to keep going. Sarah wished she could say it was to save everyone else left in the world, but she was just too hard headed to let all her experience go to waste.

“I don’t know… just uh… too Goddamn stubborn to give up, I think.”

Maybe what had kept her going was stubbornness, but it had been shaped into something bigger than making it through to the next day. “I don’t believe you.” 

“I did give up, Sarah. I did.” And finally he opened up about Boozer, and the parts of his life that he had barely mentioned until now. Sarah sent a silent thank you to Boozer as Deek spoke. As much as she’d hated being without her husband for the last two years, maybe having his brother at his side had kept him alive in a way staying together couldn’t have. Sarah had been kept awake at night imagining what it would be like to leave him when the first camp was overrun.

“Then I found out you were still alive and that’s-- that’s when I really wanted to kill myself.”

Of course he could crack a joke. “Yeah, right!”

“Then I remembered you had my Mongrels ring, and that’s what kept me going.” 

His ring. If there had been a way to keep it, she would have. But it was almost worth giving it up to hear him gripe.

“Figured I’d look you up, but you know how that turned out.”

It turned out with him wearing a stupid armband and having her, and a bunch of assholes, ordering him around as he grumbled his way through it. “Shit.”

“Exactly.”

“We can with this thing, Deacon. We can.” 

“Are you tryin’ to convince me? Or you?” Her solution wasn’t that far away. She knew it. There was science at her fingertips. So close to what she needed to breakthrough. She believed and he could too. If he couldn’t, she’d believe enough for both of them.

There was nothing else to say, but she didn’t need to. He began to steer around car after car, and the landscape was changing, the mountain so close she couldn’t get a proper look at it anymore. The sooner they got off the bike the better. She was caked in snow and it had to be worse for him in the front.

Finally, he killed the engine and she climbed off. The tunnel. The way home. Home didn’t exist any more, but it used to be on the other side of the mountain. Sarah hadn’t considered that going back to her old lab would have deeper emotional connections, but she wasn’t going to waste her energy on it. There were too many other things to dwell on.

“I’m going to need you help to move that outta the way.” 

Speaking of.

As they walked toward the humvee, Sarah got a better look at what she’d thought was a pile of fallen trees. “My god… what the hell is that?” There were human remains hung from sharpened… spikes? Spears? It was something out of a nightmare.

Deek explained sigils and Rippers in the same tone he’d take on when some guy stopped him and wanted to talk about Afghanistan. Knowledgeable, but exhausted. 

“How do we deal with them if we run into them?” Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off the gristly tableau. He’d said they worshipped the Freaks, but this was so much worse than the Freaks.

“We ain’t gonna run into them.” His tone, low and grim, turned her head towards him. His expression was so closed off, his eyes as flat as the certainty in his tone, Sarah felt a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the snow.

He turned away first. Sarah let him. There were no words to ask the questions she wanted to ask.

“You gonna help me move this or what?” 

“Yeah. Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took ages. I feel like so much of it was just novelizing exactly what the game already did so well, but hopefully I added a little depth. Also! I asked a friend who writes many more fics than I do if replying to comments was a thing people did or lame, and she said I could. I've never gotten so many so don't think it's weird that I'm going back through to reply to you all. I'm so happy anyone is here!


	8. DNA Synthesizer Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deek and Sarah continue on their adventure to Cloverdale...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry! A friend had a novel on an edit deadline and I'm committed to the project, so I had no time for this until her book was off for edits.
> 
> I have this one and another part to follow, and once I give it a look, I'll post the outtake from this series that I decided can't exist, because it makes a nice little stand-alone/pre or AU sort of thing. Apologies all. I have not forgotten about this fic and I'm really happy to be getting to some of the good stuff!

_We ain’t gonna run into them._ How could so few words rattle her so deeply? Sarah helped push the car away from the entrance of the tunnel. It wasn’t the words. There were a dozen ways he could have said them that would mean something else. 

_They moved further north._

_They stopped doing fucked up shit like that and took up basket weaving._

_I killed them._

Maybe that wasn’t what had happened, but the look Deek gave her…

So what if he did, Sarah tried to think it through logically. She knew he killed people for the Camp. Not only killed them, but was rewarded for it. The Rippers were clearly terrible people, so it shouldn’t change anything.

She couldn’t make that thought take hold in her mind. It wasn’t that the man she loved had killed someone, though it had taken her a long time to understand that he’d probably killed someone the night he got her out of Farewell, it was that he couldn’t say the words.

Something in her conscience twinged. Wasn’t she the one who said she’d gone through what everyone else had when he asked her what had happened to her?

Sarah was just as much a stranger to Deacon as he was to her. 

The thought ached, but it also liberated. 

As strange as this new relationship was, they were equals.

“Hey, this looks familiar.” It wasn’t the way Sarah used to drive to work. She came from the opposite direction, but it was still the same place she’d gone every day for years. It felt like the whole area shouldn’t exist anymore. It was part of a life that didn’t exist anymore. “Wow. I never thought I’d see this place again.”

“How the hell are we going to get in?” Deek was eyeing the fence like it was a new enemy to take down. He was always looking for the hardest way to solve a problem, Sarah thought fondly.

“Here, I’ll show you.” She moved to the console. How could it be so foreign and so familiar at the same time? “2007659.” If someone had asked her what her ID number was, she might have needed a moment, but with her hand on the screen, it was muscle memory.

The field of corn was more shocking than it should have been. Cloverdale had used what it grew to stock the cafeteria. Extras were put in baskets for employees to take home as part of wellness initiative. At the moment, Sarah couldn’t remember what the words ‘extra food’ even meant.

“Well shit, this place has everything. It’s got food. It’s got water. It’s got power. It’s got a big fucking fence. I’m surprised no one is, uh, camped out here.”

She tried to read his tone. Caution? Envy? Sarah was not shopping for a new camp. If he was, he could save that for another time. She wasn’t going to have that fight again.

In the moment she took to appreciate clean, running water, they were attacked by screaming infected birds because there was no such thing as a nice moment anymore. She should have known better.

“Shit.” She wrapped her arms around herself to stop the shaking. 

“Goddamn crows.” As usual, Deek skipped fear in favor of anger.

“They’re infected…” Sarah knew animals could be infected, but other than the occasional wolf she’d seen back when she did her own runs, none had ever attacked her.

“It makes them a pain in my ass.” Because of course he’d faced them before, because the Shit had no dangers left to surprise him. How could he live like this? Sarah didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or kiss him. Just Deek being Deek.

They climbed out of the car and she was reluctant to let go of his hand as he helped her to her feet. 

“What the hell happened here?” Deek stared at the cars.

They’d passed plenty of abandoned cars, or cars that had been overrun, so Sarah hadn’t thought twice about it. But until the mountain pass, these cars couldn’t have been overrun safely behind the electric fence. And they weren’t abandoned.

“What….” Deek moved car to car, dead body to dead body. “These people all worked here, right?”

“Yeah…” Sarah hadn’t thought about most of her coworkers. Most of them, even the ones she’d been friendly with, were just other people who lived or died with the end of the world. It was different to stand next to their cars and look at their decomposing bodies. “Yeah. I knew them.” 

Maybe there really was nothing left of her old life other than an old building still mindlessly continuing and a husband she hardly knew. “Come on, let’s go.”

“So someone shot them all while they were trying to leave?” Deek sounded angry. 

“Yeah, I mean it looks like it.” Sarah didn’t have the energy to waste on anger.

“And then they just locked the place up and they left? Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, Deacon.” Maybe they thought everything would be better in a couple days and the employees were trying to hide in the compound? Maybe her coworkers had come to loot supplies right before everything fell apart? Maybe there was something to keep hidden inside the facility, and she couldn’t begin to explain that to Deek? “I don’t know, I wasn’t here.”


	9. DNA Synthesizer Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Deek find Jim

“Motherfucker!” Sarah had been so ready to believe it had all been a coincidence. She would have gone with misunderstanding. A lot changed in two years. No, of course not. _Motherfucker._

“You were saying?” Deek crouched beside her as people shot at them. Her former coworkers shot at them.

“Yeah.” Sarah glared as she readied her rifle.

“If this world’s taught me one thing? Trust no one and expect the worst.” 

“I’m beginning to see your point on that.” Sarah just wanted a DNA synthesizer. Why was it so hard to save the world?

Then it was all deadly force and covering fire. She knew she should have found it more disturbing than she did. These had been her coworkers. Their faces and voices hadn’t changed enough since she’d seen them last to pretend she didn’t know them, but here she and Deek were. The enemy at the gates, killing the campers.

Though they’d fought together before, Sarah never had a moment to watch Deacon do this. Kill people. There was something so natural in his movement, so practiced in the work. It should horrify her. It didn’t. There was something fiercely comforting about watching him. 

“We have to get up those stairs to the sky bridge.” She followed him, rifle sweeping the landing.

“Alright, I’m with you.” 

That was them, a team. A team that killed more guards, or campers, or whatever they were. But they had sniper rifles and they hadn’t wanted to talk long enough to do this peacefully.

“One more time.” She pressed one sweating hand to the pad. “Sarah Irene Whitaker. ID 2007659. Security override, and disable the fucking voice response.”

Deek had the nerve to laugh because she swore at an automated voice. 

The door slid open to reveal office space. Sarah had a cube in a building like this around here somewhere. Same industrial carpet tiles. Same drab office chairs. She never used it, but there was a nameplate with her name on it, and probably some long forgotten promotional stress balls and other debris of corporate life. She saw a familiar figure retreat through the fire doors as more armed men charged them.

“Jim, wait!” She didn’t want to kill anyone else. Instead, he disappeared behind the closing doors. “That sonofabitch--”

“Well, like you said. A lot’s change,” Deek snapped, and Sarah was tempted to find a stress toy to hit him with. 

“They’re waiting for us in the atrium.” They were so close. Sarah was willing to walk through hell -- if that was worse than this at this point -- to get what she’d come for, but this wasn’t a suicide mission. 

“Please see an IT administrator for assistance.” 

“Oh, fucking bitch,” Sarah swore at Airi. All the IT administrators were probably dead.

Instead, Deek came up with a plan. One that didn’t have them running headlong into gunfire, and honestly a better plan than she had at the moment. It was a plan that split them up, and even if it was a good plan, Sarah wish for a better idea. She could do this standing next to him, knowing he was whole and breathing as he muttered a steady stream of profanity. She wanted to save the world. She didn’t want to watch helplessly as something happened to Deek.

They cleared the atrium with Deek as the newest member of the Cloverdale employee roster. How he would have bitched about that before the end of the world. 

“That’s the last of them,” he said before the last casing stopped chiming on the polished stone floor.

“Nope, there’s one more.” Sarah knew Jim would be close, but she knew he’d run. He’d been doing it since they arrived. “I saw Jim go scurrying into the office up there.” Like the rat that he was. Sarah hated herself for all the times she’d defended him when Deek retold the story about their little tiff at the gate.

“Wait here. I’ll bring him to you.” Deek sounded like he would enjoy it, so Sarah stood back and let him. 

He surprised her by bringing Jim downstairs without so much as a fresh scratch. Sarah knew Deek would have enjoyed getting his own back. 

Sarah moved closer to the former security guard. He looked better than most of her former employees.

“All the dead people outside, Jim. You know, the ones you shot in the head.” Sarah walked closer to him. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about--” he lied and Sarah put the butt of her rifle into his ribs and he crumpled to the ground at her boots.

Deek had been furious outside when it was a faceless monster who had done the shooting. Sarah knew better than to waste her bullets.

“I mean, what was it, huh? What were they trying to do?” She crouched down to his level. “Get home to their families? Maybe bring them back here?” He couldn’t answer because he was still trying to get his air back. “You didn’t want that, did you? 

“We just couldn’t take the risk,” he gasped out, and she wanted to shoot him on the spot.  
They needed him alive, but she knew with bone-deep certainty that he deserved to die. “Get up.”

Sarah stood. She was done with him, but there was one more thing to take care of before he was done. Deek dragged him to his feet and they all marched to the door of the lab.

“I can’t. Don’t make me.” Jim looked from her, to where Deek stood just out of his periphery, and back to Sarah. Pleading. Probably less than the innocents he’d gunned down at the gate with his little toy badge as justification.

“I’m going to count to three…” Sarah raised the rifle. She could hear Deek’s boots pacing. Because he wanted her to know he was there. As support? A warning? Maybe just to get a better angle. Sarah didn’t ask. This was her mess and she’d handle it herself. 

“No, no, you don’t understand.” 

Jim was wrong. She understood. “One-- two--”

“Look, don’t do this.”

“Open the goddamn door!” She pressed the rifle close enough he couldn’t move

“Alright!” His hand rested of the pad for just a second before the doors slid open. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you, Jim. Yes, we know what we’re doing.” And if he had been anything but a power-tripping murderer, she and Deek could have gotten here with no bodies on the floor.

His eyes darted from hers to the barrel of the gun. She hadn’t moved it from him. “You don’t have to do this. Let me go.”

His tone was so reasonable. Maybe, strictly speaking, he was right. But ‘reasonable’ was about thirty dead late for today. Countless dead late for two years ago. 

“I’m sorry. We just can’t take the risk.” She would do it, and Jim could read it in her eyes, because he made the first twitch of a lunge before the shot fired. He would have never been fast enough. She was pulling the trigger before he had realized how prepared she was to do it.

Sarah didn’t turn to Deek. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes. Whatever it was. He’d done what he’d done, and so had she. 

“C’mon. I wanna get the hell out of here.” She walked into the lab and tried not to think about how long it was before she heard his boots on the stone floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have THOUGHTS about Sarah's shooting Jim, but I am going to carry those over to next chapter because scene breaks are a nightmare in a mission this long. 
> 
> Also, fair warning, I assume next chapter is when things were get smutty. I'll put a note in the summary in case people would rather skip the scene.


	10. DNA Synthesizer Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Deek leave Cloverdale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I skipped Sarad explaining the outbreak because I feel like she explained how she was feeling the whole way through that scene. If there was an under-explored POV to tell that moment from, it’s Deek’s (and therefore out of the scope of this fic… according to me….?)
> 
> As usual, this scene (at least the start of it) is brought to you by a throw away line that caught my attention. (The dialog between Deek and Kouri about Sarah not answering him)
> 
> Also, shoutout to Sarah’s voice actor for keeping that little panic wobble in her throat for the whole scene.

“You think you can load that up?” Deacon nodded at the equipment in her arms. The piece she was carrying like a precious child. 

“Yeah -- sure.” The words sounded thin. Fragile. Sarah wanted to sound like herself again. She wanted to sound like the Witch. Sure. Bulletproof. 

She wasn’t sure, and she sure wasn’t bulletproof. She was every bit as vulnerable as she sounded, and Deek heard it too.

“Okay, um… I’ll be right there.” He touched her arm like he was worried she’d blow away in a breeze.

 _I’m fine._  
_Don’t worry about me._  
_I got this._

“Okay.” Sarah sounded meek. She sounded rattled. God, she sounded like a liability. For the million times she’d glared at Deek and told him she was strong and she could take care of herself, she sounded weak. She needed to get her shit together. The weak did not survive The Shit.

She turned and walked to the gate, hating the way she felt him watching her. 

He may have held her when she cried, but there was no way he would feel the way he had about her. Not the way he used to feel about her before everything, and not the way he’d felt about her since joining the Militia. 

She had been part of that. Part of this. 

She had to fix it. Who knew if anyone from Cloverdale - other than asshole security guards - had even survived the original outbreak. Sarah felt sick to her stomach as she struggled to load the sequencer on the back of the bike. 

Why had she ignored David’s warnings? Even if she didn’t believe him, she could have told someone. Her supervisor? HR? Someone could have known. Acted. Even if it would have cost David his job? Even if it would have cost David his life? It would have been better than this hellscape.

She had just killed a man she knew, point-blank, and she wasn’t even thinking about Jim.

Shock, probably. People experienced shock after traumatic things. That was normal. 

But was it shock? Had this been traumatic? 

Going to the lab had. Facing the proof that she could have contributed to the outbreak, the freakers, absolutely.

Pulling a bullet in a man who invited her to bar trivia night when she’d first transferred to Cloverdale? That felt surprisingly okay. Horrifyingly okay.

She really was a monster. A witch, Sarah corrected herself, trembling hands doing a shit job of securing the elastic cables. She was as bad as everyone said she was. Worse. She was culpable. Guilty.

Her stomach pitched and she threw up in the long dead shrubs along the once-landscaped border.

Her comm came to life, but it wasn't Deek's voice, so she didn't care. She was too miserable. Too pathetic. There was nothing to say. She was still shaking as the ground around her was coated white. Shit. Sarah forced herself to move. Up, off her knees and out of the shrubs. The world was going monochrome. Fuck, it was snowing hard. Not some flurries, not two days of slowly mounting flakes that would make the world look like a winter wonderland. It was a fast-moving storm that would catch them like a sucker punch. 

Sarah focused on the ties, and on ignoring the guilt rolling around in her empty stomach.

Deek didn’t sneak up on her, even with the snow to soften his steps. Must have worried she’d shoot him. He’d finished his call while she was curled up in the underbrush doing fuck all to help anyone.

“Did you talk to him? To Boozer?” She wanted anything to talk about other than what happened to Jim. What happened in the lab.

“Yeah,” he said, expression totally neutral.

_God, what did he tell Boozer?_

“Yeah. Yeah, I told him that you’re fine and we’re fine. And that I had to get moving.” He hung his head. “Because we have to make it over the pass before the weather turns.”

 _Right._ The way he draped himself over his bike, refusing to look at her was totally reassuring. Sarah wished there was something left in her stomach to throw up, she felt so sick. He couldn’t even meet her eye.

The sky was a bruise, dark greys and purples that would be beautiful if she didn’t know what it meant. Deep drifts, thundersnow, white out.

“What do you think?” She didn’t look at him. If they could just get back to camp, they could have some space. That was what she needed, wasn’t it?

“Doesn’t look good.” 

She couldn’t stay there. They couldn’t go back inside Cloverdale to wait out the storm. Not for all the electricity and hot water the place had to offer. 

“But it’s worth a try, so uh…” He kicked the bike to life. “Let’s get moving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... the next chapter is the cabin. I have seen zero fics with that scene. I guess we're just going to do that, right? Dive in and all that? I guess if folks want that fade-to-black or something, let me know?


	11. The Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Deek take refuge in an abandoned cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smutty bit... Dunno. It's like a million words long because there are just so many feels. Hopefully it's not disappointing.
> 
> If anyone knows how I'm supposed to tag this as smutty other than literally adding a tag that (misleadingly, tbh) says "sex" please suggest.... I'd hate to be misleading....

They rode long past the point of safety. If it had been anyone other than Deek, Sarah might have said something. If it had been someone other than Deek, she might have been paying attention.

Instead, they rode silently. She huddled against his back for comfort as much as for warmth, even if she wondered if the contact was welcome. He could always say something if it wasn’t.

Her fingers had long gone numb in the wind and she couldn’t feel her face anymore. She could have told him to stop, but she wanted the silence and the miles between her and Cloverdale. Between her and her past.

Finally, the bike stopped, snapping her out of her daze.

“Can’t get much further tonight.” Deek killed the engine and began to flex his fingers on the handlebars. 

Sarah blinked and looked around like she’d just woken up. It was a small valley, surrounded by evergreens. The snow was too thick for her to identify them. Her brain was too frozen to think. If she’d been cold behind him, Deek must be so much worse as her windbreak. 

“We should be good here.” He jerked his head towards a log cabin. 

“Right.” Sarah unlocked her icy fingers from around his chest. 

“I’ll check it out.” He wasted no time climbing off the bike and reaching for his handgun. “You keep an eye out here, okay?” 

“Yeah, okay.” Sarah moved slowly, her clothing stiff with ice and snow. She pulled the rifle off her back and scanned the area as best she could while he pushed the bike into the shelter of an old woodshed.

There was no screaming, no gunfire. Just the howling wind. Sarah circled twice before he called the all clear.

Even then, Sarah was not quick to duck inside. She’d been wrong about so many things.

After that, everything was silent again. Making a fire in the old stone hearth, picking through the supplies in their packs to make something like dinner, and finally Sarah slipping away to change out of her wet, cold clothes.

The modesty was stupid. He was her husband. He could barely look at her anyway. Still, Sarah ducked out of the living room and into an old, ransacked bedroom to slip off her clothes, goosebumps everywhere as she stripped. As cold as she was, there was a fire and forgotten blankets. She didn’t think any of those things could make her feel alive again, but she wouldn’t freeze to death.

She’d been ready to rejoin him when Sarah hesitated. 

Deacon, nearly naked, painted in the firelight. 

How had a man like that ever wanted her? She drank the sight in, even if it was wrong. He wasn’t hers anymore, whatever he may think, but the shadows of the ink on his strong back, the body that was left when all the baby fat melted away… he was beautiful, even if she’d never have a moment to tell him.

Watching as he warmed himself, she wished she was the sort of person who made wishes. She wanted to wish him warmth. And safety. And peace.

This wasn’t a lifetime for wishes.

“Hey, you gonna come out and eat something?” He didn’t turn around to call to her, but Sarah was pretty sure she could see him shivering.

“Yeah, just a second.” She scrambled to gather her wet clothes. They’d need to be dry and warm by morning. 

He looked over as she came closer, and part of Sarah wanted to shrink back. The firelight caught the planes and planes and edges, making him sharp and golden. 

“Everything I had is soaking wet,” she said, focusing every spare drop of her attention on laying out her clothes. She wouldn’t sneak a look to see if he was watching her. If he was looking her over for changes like she’d done him. He’d never said anything about the scar on her nose, but did that mean he didn’t notice what two years of camp rations and no morning jogs did to her? 

When she finally peeked at him, his attention was firmly on the fire. She could only make herself crazy asking if it was respectful or avoidant. 

“Excuse me.” She set out her tank top on the last available space on the fireplace. He shifted away for her to do it, and maybe she just needed to see some sort of reaction.

Sarah took the square of rug next to him, eyes fixed as firmly ahead as his were.

“Never thought I’d get warm again.” God, was she making small talk? 

“Yeah.” He clearly wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Sarah almost wished something would jump out and try to kill them to spare her the awkwardness of the moment. Charming, smart-mouthed Deek was nowhere to be found. 

“Did you want to -- eat something-- or---” Anything other than her slowly dying from the silence between them.

“Yeah, yeah...” He seemed grateful for something to do. 

As they moved to take the pot from the stove, Sarah sat back down. Who was she kidding. She wasn’t hungry, just desperately uncomfortable and slowly defrosting.

“God, I’m not even hungry.” Getting the pot off the fire was too much effort at the moment. How could she think about food when every bit of her that wasn’t consumed with guilt was intensely focused on the man next to her.

“Yeah, neither am I.” Deek returned to his spot. For the first time in what felt like hours, he looked at her. “You’re cold. Come here.” 

Deek wrapped an arm around her, pressing her to his side. He was chilled, but so much warmer than she was. Still, Sarah sat stiffly. If she didn’t look at him, didn’t breathe, maybe she could pretend every nerve ending in her body wasn’t currently buzzing at every point of bare skin contact between them. 

Finally, she looked because she had to. She couldn’t not, and he was looking at her. Sarah warned herself not to trace the beloved lines of his face with her gaze. Scolded herself for melting just a little further into his side. _Say something_ , she screamed at her brain. Anything that would break the tension. Anything that would stop this moment from being too much, too real and too close to let pass.

Instead, his hand rested so gently on her arm. She could have pulled away. Told him it was the wrong thing to do, but she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Her whole body was begging for him to touch her, even if she couldn’t find the words to make it right. She missed him.

The same hand came up to brush her cheek and Sarah was frozen to the spot. Could he touch her, knowing what he did about her? What he’d seen her do?

Her eyes fluttered closed even as she tried to force them open. She couldn’t miss a second of this. She couldn’t miss making these memories. Burning these moments into her mind because she knew they might never happen again. He moved closer so slowly, like she could object. Like she would pull away.

Sarah leaned closer, meeting him halfway. Even then, the moment their lips met was a surprise, like she’d forgotten what softness and warmth were until that very moment.

When he backed away just a breath, Sarah battled the urge to drag him back. His touch was so gentle, so cautious. The kiss must have settled something for him. The next one was more sure, more confident. His hand cupped her cheek, moving lower to cradle her as she opened her mouth to him. 

How could kissing someone be exactly what it used to be before the world ended?

Sarah turned to him, trying to get closer, but he already knew what she needed, and somehow before she could even maneuver it, she was lying on the thin sheet on the floor, his warm body half-covering hers. 

_Yes. Please._ Sarah would have begged, but she was busy drowning in his kisses. They were as hungry and needy as her own. His hands moved over her neck, her arms, her sides. Not teasing, but slowly and carefully, like he was checking she was all there.

Somehow, one of her hands had slipped into his hair. So long. So much longer than he used to wear it. And his beard. She used to complain when would go too many days without shaving, but she should have let him do it, she breathed a little laugh against his mouth. _That was a lifetime ago._

Somehow, that got his attention, and Deek pulled back to look at him. He looked as dazed as she felt, lips parted as he caught his breath, eyes fogged with want.

“Sarah.” He just gazed down at her. 

She felt a little smiled pull at her lips. “Right here.” 

“Yeah, you are.” Something like relief washed over his face as he smiled back. “If... “ His mouth worked for a moment. “We don’t have to… If you aren’t…”

He meant it. If she told him to stop, he’d stop. If she set a line, he wouldn’t cross it. He wouldn’t even toe it. Sarah forced herself to let go of him. “Let me up.”

He did. Instantly. Like she’d burned him. “Shit… I… Sarah…Fuck.”

She’d been climbing to her feet but she stilled, turning back to him. He was still braced on his side, perfect body kissed golden by the fire, eyes wide and bewildered. 

“No, Deek... “ She sighed, climbing the rest of her way to her feet and going to where her jeans were drying by the fire. Sarah fumbled with the wet fabric until she found what she was looking for. “Here.” 

He looked from her face to the outstretched hand like she might bite him, before finally sitting up and reaching out. She watched his brows fly up when he saw the condoms.

“What?” Sarah grumbled to cover her embarrassment. “It’s the zombie apocalypse. Being prepared is important.” He carried a small armory on him at all times and loved digging through cupboards.

“When did… you do always…?” His jaw still hung a little loose, but a million questions were printed on his face.

“Jesus, Deek. I went to visit Doc Jimenez. After you… after you found me.” Like she had so many reasons to need condoms the rest of the time. “Just… in case.”

That soothed his male ego. A hint of teasing curled in the corner of his mouth. “Just in case,” he echoed.

“Oh, shut up.” Sarah would have thought she was too cold to blush, but she’d forgotten all about being cold. She sat back down next to him primly, nerves mixing with anticipation, twisting her into knots.

He didn’t bother to hide his smirk. “Yes, ma’am.”

She reached out to trace the line of his shoulder, to the base of his throat. Her fingertips trailed goosebumps on his skin. Her thumb brushed the ink on the side of his neck. Her name on his skin. She’d thought he was crazy when he’d gotten it. 

“Sarah.” His voice was rough and he leaned into her touch. “Are you sure?”

“So sure.” She was already leaning closer, drawn like a magnet. “Wait, are you?” He kept asking her, but…

“Yes.” He dragged her the rest of the way in to claim her lips. It wasn’t cautious or hungry. It was desperate. “Oh hell yes.”

“Deek…” she purred his name, and in an instant they were back where they’d been, scattered on the living room rug, his hands gripping and stroking her skin, his mouth breathless and needy against hers. “Please.”

“Yes.” His teeth nipped her neck. “Anything.” Her fingers tightened in his hair and he growled. Sarah didn’t have anything to ask for. This moment was getting closer to perfect by the second. His hands moved under her camisole, and the sound she made might have been a whimper. 

“Hearing you…” he murmured against her skin, hands moving warmly over her ribs and side. “On the radio, shit… the sound of your voice….”

She squirmed under him, just enough room to drag the hem of her shirt up a few inches before it was caught on something that clearly didn’t understand how much she wanted the two of them naked. “Deek.”

“Just like that.” He freed the fabric and guided it over her head. The air was cold on her for a split second before his hands and lips covered her. There had been a lot of things in the world since everything went to shit. Soft touches and deep, heartfelt moments were not one of them. Sarah tangled her legs with his. Any effort to get him closer. Deek lifted his head to scold her. “Slow down. I’ve spent a long time dreaming of this.”

She could have let the words sway her. Instead, Sarah rocked her hips against his and trailed her blunt nails down his back. “Save it for round two.”

The sound he made was part laugh, part groan. “Yes, ma’am.”

Somehow, the two of them finally removed what little clothes they’d been wearing. Sarah could have paid attention to that, but she was too busy tracing the new lines of taut muscle he’d developed since she’d seen him last. Sarah would have felt insecure about the bits of her that were saggier or fleshier since he’d seen her last, but Deek was too busy praising every inch of skin he was covering for her to think about it.

“Shit,” he grumbled as he tried to get the tiny packet open. 

“Careful. Only so many of those left in the world,” Sarah teased, plucking it from his fingers. Maybe it was a trick of the firelight, but she almost thought she’d seen his hands shaking. Hers were not, and in a second she’d slid the protection in place. 

He watched her for a long moment, and Sarah let him. Not dead. Close enough to touch. Yeah, even if he was the sentimental one, this was a lot. She let out a little, watery laugh. Fuck, the world was a crazy place. A crooked smile pulled at his lips.

“C’mere.” He caught her lips as he covered her body. Her fingers trailed the line of his back. Deek was so careful, she wanted to scream but finally he rocked into her and Sarah forgot how to breathe.

“Deek.” Her heart was about ready to jump out of her chest but he held himself still, braced on his elbows, his hair hiding his face as he hung his head. She watched the tremble in his shoulders and at first she thought he’d been as overwhelmed by the sensation as she was. When he dragged in a ragged breath, she knew it was something different. “Deek, look at me. Please.”

He lifted his head, but not enough to move the hair from his face. She brushed it aside to see the shine in his eyes. He dropped his gaze. 

Sarah shifted as best she could, twining herself around him. “Deek.”

“Never thought this…” he bit his lower lip. “I thought…”

“I’m right here.” She tried to meet his gaze. “So are you. And I have been dreaming of this.”

He nodded wordlessly, a little strangled laugh slipping out. She loved him so much she ached. He was the strongest man she knew, and one of the most vulnerable. He took a deep breath and lifted his eyes.

“Sarah…” He still said it like she couldn’t possibly be real. Sarah nodded. “Fuck.” Deek laughed, leaning down the last inches to kiss her. He’d settled whatever he’d needed to in his own mind. The kiss wasn’t just a kiss. He claimed her mouth, his touch possessive as he cradled the back of her neck, and when he finally pulled back, that little smirk was back on his lips. “Slow’s for round two, right?”

“Damn right.” Sarah tangled a hand into his hair. Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling possessive.

His hand dragged down her body to grip her thigh, dragging it up over his hip as he began to rock with her. Reflexively, she pulled him closer, teeth catching at the muscles of his shoulder even if she knew she shouldn’t leave a mark. She rocked with him as the storm seemed to shudder the cabin around them. Just this once, all the things that wanted to kill them could wait. “More.” She definitely wasn’t begging. “Deek…”

He gave her more, and she couldn’t stop herself from crying out. Begging. Calling his name. If anything, the look on his face grew even more determined as he stroked deeper and faster. She fell apart in his arms. If she screamed, she didn’t hear it over the thundering of her heart and the rushing in her ears. 

“Shit, Sarah…” Deek bared his teeth, rocking desperately as she tried to remember how fingers worked so she could ease her bruising grip on his hip. He went over the edge calling her name. She clung to him like he clung to her, sweaty, trembling, and spent. The weight of him half-crushing her was one of those things she hadn’t remembered to miss while she’d been without him, but she tried to file in away now. Like the light on his sweat-slicked skin, and the smell of fresh sweat in his hair.

Just in case.

“I’m crushing you.” Deek struggled to arrange them more comfortably on the old sheet and rug without breaking contact more than he had to. “Are you… Did I hurt you?”

“Nope.” Sarah felt better than she had in a very long time. “But you’re going to have to explain away a lot of bruises.” She snuggled back against him.

“They all know I have some friends out in the Shit.” He shifted to give her a shoulder to pillow her head.

Sarah jabbed his ribs. She didn’t want to hear about these ‘friends’. He wrapped an arm around her side and they fell silent. It would be smart to get up, clean off before they were too comfortable to move.

“I thought you were dead.” He held her in his arms, her back to his chest. She thought he might have fallen asleep, but he sounded awake and thoughtful. “I made you a headstone.”

“Where?” 

“At the refugee camp the chopper was supposed to take you to. Carved your name into a rock.”

“Why?” She hadn’t done that for him. Maybe because she wasn’t as sentimental, but mostly because she couldn’t think of why she’d want that. She’d hoarded her feelings and memories, locked them up so she could take them out one at a time. They couldn’t overwhelm her that way. As much as she’d hated to give up his ring, she’d clung to the parts of him where she kept all the things she valued, in her mind.

“So I could go somewhere and feel close to you.” He shifted so she could feel his breath on her hair. “Everything reminded me of you. Belknap road, the old church… All the places you used to be, but now you weren’t…”

It was so opposite to how she’d felt. Everything had been different. She’d clung to any memory of their time visiting Wizard Island to ground herself with memories of him. Maybe in some ways, she’d tried to find ways to feel close to him too. She couldn’t think about the future. She couldn’t fight about it with the sweat still drying in her hair. “And now we’re here.”

“Now we’re here.” Deek pressed a kiss to her hair. Maybe he didn’t want to fight about it either.


End file.
